Armand Gautier (1825-1894) Woman At Couture

Charcoal drawing representing a woman sewing
Good quality Signed lower left: Armand GAUTIER (1825-1894)
Framed and glazed
Circa 1880


Amand Gautier was first a student of François Souchon at the academic school of Lille in 1845 where he meets Paul Gachet2. Then he became a student of Léon Cogniet at the Paris School of Fine Arts. He frequented the Andler brasserie, rue Hautefeuille, where he became friends with Henri Murger, Champfleury, Gustave Courbet and most of the supporters of the French realist movement. During the 1850s, he exhibited paintings of nuns at the Salon which brought him a certain success and earned him the nickname “painter of the sisters of charity” [ref. necessary]. Around 1860, he encouraged the young Claude Monet who designated him as his master on his student card3. First engaged in the fight for realism, he then rubbed shoulders with impressionist painters. He then spent a lot of time in Honfleur and Le Havre in the company of Eugène Boudin, Johan Barthold Jongkind and Carolus-Duran. Thanks to Paul Gachet, he went to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he met Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, who in 1881 bought a painting from him2.